What was Elton John’s and Sheila Farebrother feud about?

Elton John didn’t speak to his mother Sheila for almost a decade and only appeared to bury the hatchet in 2017.

The fall out began after Sheila had been invited to be the official witness at the Elton and his now husband David Furnish’s civil partnership in 2005, but was told she could not appear in any of the photos because she refused to wear a hat.

She said: “That didn’t go down well with Furnish because he wanted it to be the Wedding of the Year.”

Another blow came when Sheila’s husband Fred — to whom she was married for 40 years after divorcing Sir Elton’s dad Stanley Dwight — fell ill and died in 2007.

Sheila said: “I think he just hung on thinking that Elton would come to see him and he never did.”

She and Sir Elton stopped talking entirely in 2008 when he demanded she cut off communication with two of their oldest friends — Bob Halley and John Reid.

Bob had worked for the singer for three decades, but then left as part of a series of changes to his team.

John, who had been Sir Elt’s manager and briefly his lover, guided his career from its early days to his £235million fortune. Sheila felt David was taking over every aspect of her son’s life.

In 2015 she said of their row: “He told me I thought more of Bob Halley than I did of my own son. "I said to him, ‘And you think more of that f***ing thing you married than your own mother’.”

She blamed Furnish, 55, for axing Bob and ex-manager John Reid, but Sir Elton’s friends claim Bob quit of his own accord.

The singer later said of his mother: “I don’t hate her, but I don’t want her in my life.”

Their relationship hit rock bottom when Sheila and Bob hired an Elton tribute act for her 90th birthday as the star stayed away.